b: 2 eggs, 6oz of fish, tomatoes, 2 cups broccoli
l: beef jerky
d: 2 cups broccoli, tomatoes, a turkey burger, 2 slices of lean ham, and an avocado
post dinner snack: 6 oz of fish, two more eggs, spinach

I am trying to eat paleo, I've read neanderthin and cordain's book, I am also trying to help my psychotic mood swings/severe depression that are a result of being vegan and nutrient deprived for 8 mo's. Yes, I am under a doctors care so don't worry. I don't need to lose weight I just need to maintain it. I have a problem with binging on nuts and sometime fruits. Need advice on how to maintain my weight without over doing those items since they really wreak havoc on my moods (esp the fruit).

Your food looks good!

I am not 100% certain, but I think getting lots of olive and coconut oil might satisfy your cravings and keep your weight in check. Fat is definitely the answer. If you can stand it, treat yourself to nuts/fruit once a week while in transition...and always eat the fruit and nuts after youve eaten your fat and protien, that way the sugars/carbs will digest slower and it won't be liable to set you off as easily.

As for myself, if I eat a higher glycemic food after a meal, I find I won't eat as much than when I start out with a sugary food on an empty stomach.

Just think about all those people who down corn syrup fortified cranberry juice first thing in the morning....yeeeesh! It makes me shiver!

Your food looks a lot like what I'd have, except I have a lot less due to a reduced appetite the longer I do this WOL.

The sugar can set off severe mood swings, that's for sure. I had loads of fruit this week and felt really down in the dumps, quite unusual for me. It just seems to affect some people more than others.

BTW, the fruit I had was all citrus,which is mainly what we shouldn't have so much of...I think we should stick to other kinds of fruits. Does anyone know about this?

I agree with Steveed, "Where's the Fat?" The menu looks great, but the only item with fat in it is the Avocado and you mentioned binging on nuts and fruits but don't see them in your menu. IMO, since you mentioned that you are not overweight, don't worry about binging on nuts. If you look at Ray Audette's sample menus there are time when he eats up to 2 cups of nuts in one sitting. He isn't fat and is not trying to lose weight. The fruit you could perhaps cut back to twice a day and ensure it's a low sugar fruit not because it will cause you to lose weight but so as not to trigger sugar cravings. Olive oil, lard and coconut oil are great and you can eat them all by themselves and they won't hurt you. You need to build some lean muscle if you were ex-vegan so a little weight gain wouldn't hurt as long as you aren't gaining in inches.

and WELCOME TO THE CAVE! ROARRRR!

yeah well about nuts...
if I eat nuts I eat waaaay too many of them. I can easily gain two lbs a week just from eating too many nuts and fruits. I just get addicted to them and cannot stop. By the way...Can you really eat lots of fat on this way of life and not gain weight? It seems too good to be true. I have been craving fats but have gone easy b/c I am afraid of blowing up like a blimp from pouring olive oil and avocados over every thing.
today
b: two eggs, turkey, avocado, asparagus
l: beef jerky
s: roast beef, spinach, broccoli, olives
d: turkey burger and more greens
how long does it take your body to adjust to a lower carb level??? I am still waiting for that "rush" of energy! I feel kind of blah after eating lc for the past 3 days. the food is tasty though...

The fats that are absent from your meals are specifically the saturated fats, the ones that will actually promote good health and possibly supply that missing feeling. That means fat from animal sources.

Look, we are all eating this way and losing weight--I personally eat lots of animal fat, as well as coconut oil, the most saturated fat, and am having no problems losing weight. If you're thinking about what Cordain might have said, I believe he is too influenced by the fatophobics in the mainstream.

yeah...I have only read cordain's book, couldn't find audette's book, just read paraphrases of it off of some websites. I did eat a nice small steak tonight so that should provide some saturated fats for me. For some reason tonite I felt esp. alert so maybe I am finally adjusting to lc-ing paleo style. After being vegan for so long it is hard to imagine being able to eat enough fat to be satiated and still maintain a decent weight. The concept of eating loads of fat and still being lean boggles my mind (I am not kidding here, it really does!) and I wanted to hear it from some real people not just some "diet book." I was worried that since I was already lean that lc-ing and high fat would make me gain weight and that it only worked for people with a lot of weight to lose.

[QUOTE=ex_vegan]yeah...I have only read cordain's book, couldn't find audette's book, just read paraphrases of it off of some websites. I did eat a nice small steak tonight so that should provide some saturated fats for me. For some reason tonite I felt esp. alert so maybe I am finally adjusting to lc-ing paleo style. QUOTE]

Did the alertness come after you ate the steak?

If so it could have been just the thing you needed. Some saturated fat and some iron.

Well, I am an ex-vegan, as well. We started out about 12 years ago as vegetarians, then vegan, then macrobiotic. I have been on a long mission to find the truth and thought Michio Kushi had all the answers. Then his daughter and wife died of cancer--not good. After that was sort of in limbo until I discovered Sally Fallon and the Weston A. Price foundation and I was shocked to find what Dr. Price had discovered in his travels around the world. It was almost like the scene in Sleeper where after having been frozen for 200 years and then being thawed out, the scientists are surprised that Woody Allen doesn't know that cigarettes and saturated fat and chocolate fudge had been discovered to be healthy. Well, only one of those is true, but it's still like having your world turned upside down. And I'm angry for having been lied to by the mainstream health complex and the government for the last 30 years. Check out westonaprice.org just to see what Price found about saturated fat and some of the food myths that have been perpetuated. Some people who know me think I'm just on another of my crazy diets, but I believe I have now found the truth.

Howard

I am fascinated by your histories Howard and Ex-Vegan because my search for the truth only started 20 years after I fell for the low-fat (food pyramid) hype and eventually got a stroke (among other things). I was very fortunate that as a child born into a poor immigrant family, our way of eating was very close to Paleo but with dairy and some grain. We ate a lot of buckwheat, sour dark rye bread, sour raw milk, unpasturized cheeses, lard, animal fat and blood and everything was cooked from scratch. Nothing was processed and you never saw any fruit drinks or sodas in our house. We turned up our noses at white bread products. Too bad brainwashing by our conventional modern wisdom made me give it all up. Later, like Howard, I became very angry with doctors, dietitians and the government for their neglect of nutritional medicine/treatment while spending billions upon billions of dollars on drug/pharmaceutical and surgical research. What makes me even angrier is their refusal to admit their mistakes and adament refusal to move in the direction of nutritional research. They will be forced eventually, but way too late for many people. When I think of the suffering caused by our own physicians because they have not taken the time to look into nutritional medicine. Yet there are those physicians (like Atkins, Eades, Mercola, McBride) who saw that traditional (modern) nutritional advice didn't work and they stood against it.

So where am I heading with these comments? Sounding boards are necessary for those of us mislead by the politically correct health establishment. If our histories can help anyone out there that is suffering and dying, then we will have accomplished a great deal, besides just venting our frustrations. At least, we found a way back to good health, albeit a little late for some of us.

I ate half a package of ground beef fried in organic coconut oil today for lunch (with my green veggies of course) and it was exactly what I had been missing! Thanks to all of the kind folks here that pointed me in that direction. I am starting to feel a little better and hope to be cruising along by the end of the week.
and yes I completely know what you are talking about when you have felt mislead by all of the so-called mainstream health and nutrition guidelines. My journey has been long and hard and I am very young so I cannot imagine what it must be like for someone who has already lived half their life. I'd be ticked to put it mildly.

Wow. Must be something about coming out of that vegan mind-fog that opens one up to the possibility of paleo eating... it screwed up my system, too, but not as badly as some, I see...

Anyway, for hours and hours of paleo reading, I recommend www.paleodiet.com --lots of data, lots of links... of special interest, are the archives of the 3 paleo-oriented discussion groups--two of which, the support and recipe forums, if they're still operational, are quite interesting to join--it's been a couple of years since I was able to participate, but I learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed it... I might check them out myself, come to think on it!

Anyway, you'll get *lots* more information there including alternate perspectives and experiences. At the time I was part of the support group, a number of the members had been drawn to the diet because of various maladies, from severe choesterol to children with autism who, like Ray Audette, were searching for hope and help beyond (and in addition to) main stream medicine.

Anyway, advertisement over... <g>

Howard,
I'm an ex vegan macro as well. My husband lived with the Kushi's ( he and I were macro teachers for years).
Quite a few macro teachers died from cancer (not just Lily and Aveline) and dh and I always thought it was deficiency related.

I discovered Price Pottenger foundation about 10 years ago- changed my diet and then went on to eat an NT type diet (including soaked grains and raw dairy which doesn't suit me as I have autoimmune thyroiditis as well as celiac) so the paleo way works best for me.

Macrobiotics made me infertile ( I had no periods nor did I ovulate) and caused such health problems. All those macro teachers always looked more than half dead to me- grey pallor etc...

I used to be one of those people.